If you are one of those people who think landscape photography is best reserved for postcards and family vacation albums, you may want to do yourself a favor and make your way down to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Your experience may revolutionize your perspective.
Currently on exhibit at the private museum is “In Response to Place: Photographs From the Nature Conservancy’s Last Great Places.” The exhibit was commissioned by The Nature Conservancy to mark its 50th year of global conservation efforts. Twelve American photographers visited some of the Conservancy’s sites to visually capture their reactions and responses to not only the natural landscape, but to the relationship between the natural world and its inhabitants. The results offer a journey through a very diverse compilation of viewpoints.
Ranging from dream-like horizons to intimate portraits to colorful abstractions, the images are as different as the eyes through which they were witnessed. Though you might expect unemotional, objective documentation, the photographs are profoundly subjective statements that get to the heart and soul of photographic art?the way we see, change and interact with the natural world around us.
Upon entering the exhibition, one is greeted by a large, encompassing print of fuzzy palm trees along a fading shoreline. One might as well be entering a dream, as the image looks as much a product of memory and imagination as one of light and film. After Sally Mann’s ethereal, colorful representation of Maya ruins amidst a thriving jungle in Mexico, one encounters Lynn Davis’ stark, black-and-white print of an abandoned motel in Utah’s Colorado Plateau. Already, the viewer’s contemplation of our past and present encroachment on these lands is involuntary.
Surprisingly enough, one of the most refreshing aspects of the exhibit is the reaction it evokes from museum-goers. Art galleries usually, and often with good reason, prompt expectations of a stiff, silent environment populated by intensely introspective individuals. Here, this does not apply. Instead, the gallery space is full of energy and dialogue?fitting proof that responses to perceptions of the natural world can affect the environment.
Each room brings new and different surprises, with each series evoking unique emotions. Annie Leibovitz, whom you may know for her celebrity portraits, captures the haunting and mysterious Shawangunk Mountains of New York. Her “Pitch Pines and Gray Birch” is visual poetry, with its simple yet powerful forms.
Hope Sandrow produced some of the most unusual images in her half-above, half-below water perspectives of the Komodo National Park in Indonesia.
Likewise, William Christenberry’s photos tranform his native Alabama into a serene, peaceful, almost universal portrait of the harmonious meeting of water with its wooded banks.
Two artists, Fazal Sheikh and Mary Ellen Mark, provide important reminders of the people and cultures that share an intimate relationship with some of these places. In contrast to some of the pure landscapes, both of their works focus on the portraiture of the people of Alaska, Virginia and Brazil, and provide reminders that environmental conservation is not only about preserving untouched natural beauty, but protecting cultures whose livelihoods depend on their environments.
One of the most powerful and memorable series of photographs comes from Richard Misrach, who managed to capture the rare natural phenomenon of an inland sea among sand dunes in Nevada. The pristine clarity, pure color and flowing form are artistic aspects rarely matched by other art forms. The clash of sky, sand and sea is at once illogical and harmonious. It speaks to the raw power, magic and awe-inspiring beauty of the natural, untouched landscape. Don’t be surprised if the exit back onto 17th Street feels like a jolt back to civilization, as lingering sensations confront concrete and traffic.
This Saturday, Nov. 10, at 2:30 pm, you can hear Georgetown University’s own Ori Soltes, Professorial Lecturer in Fine Arts and Theology, give a gallery talk on the philosophical issues brought up by the photographs. Or, if you’ve had enough intellectual lecturing and want to escape, just pay the Corcoran a visit. Despite any underlying motivation to appeal to your environmentally aware subconscious, the success of this exhibit is its production of true, artistic photography.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is located at 500 17th St., NW. The gallery is open every day except Tuesday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursday until 9 p.m. Admission is $3 with a student ID. On Monday, and Thursday after 5 p.m., admission is free.
